Police carding requires constant coverage

Carding activist and journalists Desmond Cole was in Edmonton Saturday night, finishing up an Alberta tour focused on the police practice that targets minority and vulnerable communities. Coming out of the packed event at a University of Alberta lecture theatre I’ve got two questions to start the week.

What are we going to do about carding in Edmonton and why wasn’t the local news media there?

To be fair, a few newsrooms grabbed interviews with Cole as he traveled Alberta last week. This is a good follow up to the issue overall, and it was helpful to preview the event he’d be speaking at in Edmonton. But the event itself, where Cole has time to speak to the issues he’s become so well-versed in, and bring so much expertise and experience to, is the next story to follow. And that’s to say nothing of the Indigenous experience shared here in Edmonton at the live event.

Not only did Cole speak Saturday night, he was joined by April Eve Wiberg and Tanya Harnett. Cole is worthy of media coverage, but so are these women. So are all the people in the room who shared their stories of racism, of police targeting, of vulnerable communities under siege from people who go into their neighbourhoods to exploit people. Cole’s words on police carding are valuable and need to be heard. But he’s not the only one. (And he was clear in some of those Q & As that he couldn’t speak on behalf of Indigenous peoples.)

I say that journalists are trapped by objectivity because to give “both sides” equal time in a story or, in this case, to include coverage of Desmond Cole’s visit but not attend the event, checks boxes on a list that’s taught to journalists from school and throughout too many newsrooms. False objectivity worked for a long time, but it’s now why you see people openly calling out coverage that props up incorrect or hurtful commentary. People don’t have a problem with how you interviewed that neo-Nazi, they have a problem with you interviewing him at all.

I’m sure there are journalists working in Edmonton who would want to cover the carding event. But if newsrooms as a whole won’t allocate the time and resources, it won’t happen. (It didn’t happen.) So, then, how can people in your audience from vulnerable communities trust you? If an easy-to-cover event can’t make the news and continue the narrative of this issue for a few more days, how important do people feel their stories of police targeting and racial profiling really are?

There was much talk about systemic racism at the carding event Saturday night. The lack of coverage from Edmonton’s news media confirms there’s still too long a way to go to changing that. To do better, and to truly serve many more people who live in our city, some stories are going to require constant coverage, or coverage when it’s not easy or convenient.

Many Edmontonians could benefit from this kind of “pressure through good journalism” to change minds at city hall and in the ranks of Edmonton Police. Journalists would have heard that if they were at the event on the weekend. Don’t stop listening. Start, and then keep, showing up. And don’t stop fighting for people who need help to combat systemic racism once the initial news cycle of a story is over.

Around the city

You can now step onto Jasper Avenue to see what its redevelopment might look like. This weekend saw the first steps to improving the street for people walking and living in the Downtown and Oliver neighbourhoods. The street is planned to have work done, and reduced traffic lanes, in a couple of years. Final designs will incorporate feedback from this summer’s exploration of changes.